Here is my collection of trends and predictions for year 2014:
It seems that PC market is not recovering in 2014. IDC is forecasting that the technology channel will buy in around 34 million fewer PCs this year than last. It seem that things aren’t going to improve any time soon (down, down, down until 2017?). There will be no let-up on any front, with desktops and portables predicted to decline in both the mature and emerging markets. Perhaps the chief concern for future PC demand is a lack of reasons to replace an older system: PC usage has not moved significantly beyond consumption and productivity tasks to differentiate PCs from other devices. As a result, PC lifespan continue to increase. Death of the Desktop article says that sadly for the traditional desktop, this is only a matter of time before its purpose expires and that it would be inevitable it will happen within this decade. (I expect that it will not completely disappear).
When the PC business is slowly decreasing, smartphone and table business will increase quickly. Some time in the next six months, the number of smartphones on earth will pass the number of PCs. This shouldn’t really surprise anyone: the mobile business is much bigger than the computer industry. There are now perhaps 3.5-4 billion mobile phones, replaced every two years, versus 1.7-1.8 billion PCs replaced every 5 years. Smartphones broke down that wall between those industries few years ago – suddenly tech companies could sell to an industry with $1.2 trillion annual revenue. Now you can sell more phones in a quarter than the PC industry sells in a year.
After some years we will end up with somewhere over 3bn smartphones in use on earth, almost double the number of PCs. There are perhaps 900m consumer PCs on earth, and maybe 800m corporate PCs. The consumer PCs are mostly shared and the corporate PCs locked down, and neither are really mobile. Those 3 billion smartphones will all be personal, and all mobile. Mobile browsing is set to overtake traditional desktop browsing in 2015. The smartphone revolution is changing how consumers use the Internet. This will influence web design.
The only PC sector that seems to have some growth is server side. Microservers & Cloud Computing to Drive Server Growth article says that increased demand for cloud computing and high-density microserver systems has brought the server market back from a state of decline. We’re seeing fairly significant change in the server market. According to the 2014 IC Market Drivers report, server unit shipment growth will increase in the next several years, thanks to purchases of new, cheaper microservers. The total server IC market is projected to rise by 3% in 2014 to $14.4 billion: multicore MPU segment for microservers and NAND flash memories for solid state drives are expected to see better numbers.
Spinning rust and tape are DEAD. The future’s flash, cache and cloud article tells that the flash is the tier for primary data; the stuff christened tier 0. Data that needs to be written out to a slower response store goes across a local network link to a cloud storage gateway and that holds the tier 1 nearline data in its cache. Never mind software-defined HYPE, 2014 will be the year of storage FRANKENPLIANCES article tells that more hype around Software-Defined-Everything will keep the marketeers and the marchitecture specialists well employed for the next twelve months but don’t expect anything radical. The only innovation is going to be around pricing and consumption models as vendors try to maintain margins. FCoE will continue to be a side-show and FC, like tape, will soldier on happily. NAS will continue to eat away at the block storage market and perhaps 2014 will be the year that object storage finally takes off.
IT managers are increasingly replacing servers with SaaS article says that cloud providers take on a bigger share of the servers as overall market starts declining. An in-house system is no longer the default for many companies. IT managers want to cut the number of servers they manage, or at least slow the growth, and they may be succeeding. IDC expects that anywhere from 25% to 30% of all the servers shipped next year will be delivered to cloud services providers. In three years, 2017, nearly 45% of all the servers leaving manufacturers will be bought by cloud providers. The shift will slow the purchase of server sales to enterprise IT. Big cloud providers are more and more using their own designs instead of servers from big manufacturers. Data center consolidations are eliminating servers as well. For sure, IT managers are going to be managing physical servers for years to come. But, the number will be declining.
I hope that the IT business will start to grow this year as predicted. Information technology spends to increase next financial year according to N Chandrasekaran, chief executive and managing director of Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), India’s largest information technology (IT) services company. IDC predicts that IT consumption will increase next year to 5 per cent worldwide to $ 2.14 trillion. It is expected that the biggest opportunity will lie in the digital space: social, mobility, cloud and analytics. The gradual recovery of the economy in Europe will restore faith in business. Companies are re-imaging their business, keeping in mind changing digital trends.
The death of Windows XP will be on the new many times on the spring. There will be companies try to cash in with death of Windows XP: Microsoft’s plan for Windows XP support to end next spring, has received IT services providers as well as competitors to invest in their own services marketing. HP is peddling their customers Connected Backup 8.8 service to prevent data loss during migration. VMware is selling cloud desktop service. Google is wooing users to switch to ChromeOS system by making Chrome’s user interface familiar to wider audiences. The most effective way XP exploiting is the European defense giant EADS subsidiary of Arkoon, which promises support for XP users who do not want to or can not upgrade their systems.
There will be talk on what will be coming from Microsoft next year. Microsoft is reportedly planning to launch a series of updates in 2015 that could see major revisions for the Windows, Xbox, and Windows RT platforms. Microsoft’s wave of spring 2015 updates to its various Windows-based platforms has a codename: Threshold. If all goes according to early plans, Threshold will include updates to all three OS platforms (Xbox One, Windows and Windows Phone).
Amateur programmers are becoming increasingly more prevalent in the IT landscape. A new IDC study has found that of the 18.5 million software developers in the world, about 7.5 million (roughly 40 percent) are “hobbyist developers,” which is what IDC calls people who write code even though it is not their primary occupation. The boom in hobbyist programmers should cheer computer literacy advocates.IDC estimates there are almost 29 million ICT-skilled workers in the world as we enter 2014, including 11 million professional developers.
The Challenge of Cross-language Interoperability will be more and more talked. Interfacing between languages will be increasingly important. You can no longer expect a nontrivial application to be written in a single language. With software becoming ever more complex and hardware less homogeneous, the likelihood of a single language being the correct tool for an entire program is lower than ever. The trend toward increased complexity in software shows no sign of abating, and modern hardware creates new challenges. Now, mobile phones are starting to appear with eight cores with the same ISA (instruction set architecture) but different speeds, some other streaming processors optimized for different workloads (DSPs, GPUs), and other specialized cores.
Just another new USB connector type will be pushed to market. Lightning strikes USB bosses: Next-gen ‘type C’ jacks will be reversible article tells that USB is to get a new, smaller connector that, like Apple’s proprietary Lightning jack, will be reversible. Designed to support both USB 3.1 and USB 2.0, the new connector, dubbed “Type C”, will be the same size as an existing micro USB 2.0 plug.
2,130 Comments
Tomi Engdahl says:
Windows 8.1 Update Released, With Improvements For Non-Touch Hardware
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/14/04/08/1639236/windows-81-update-released-with-improvements-for-non-touch-hardware
“Microsoft has released the highly anticipated Windows 8.1 Update, adding numerous improvements for non-touch consumers based on feedback.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Windows 8.1 Update officially available for download, is ‘mandatory’ to all Windows 8.1 users
http://www.winbeta.org/news/windows-81-update-officially-available-download-mandatory-all-windows-81-users
Tomi Engdahl says:
New Fujitsu SoC designs shrink supers’ power slurp
New kit will help Japanes space agency to build 3.4 petaflop beast
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/04/09/fujitsu_soc_greens_its_supers/
Fujitsu is pimping system-on-chip (SoC) designs for two new supers it says get 40 per cent more processing punch while slurping half as much power.
The SoC devices at the heart of the two servers consolidate 14 chipsets, Fujitsu says.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Office, IE, Flash fixes accompany Windows XP’s final Patch Tuesday
Microsoft, Adobe move to fix more security flaws
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/04/08/office_ie_and_flash_fixes_accompany_final_xp_patch_tuesday/
Microsoft has released patches for critical security vulnerabilities in Word and Internet Explorer on what is to be the final Patch Tuesday update for Windows XP systems.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Build 2014: A very different Microsoft takes aim at the future
With a new CEO and a new structure, old ideas have a new vigor.
http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/04/build-2014-a-very-different-microsoft-takes-aim-at-the-future/
Microsoft’s Build conference last week was Satya Nadella’s first developer conference as CEO. It showed a Microsoft very different from the one we’ve seen before. For the first time in many years, this is a Microsoft poised to take on the future.
The Microsoft of the last few years has been a secretive, defensive company.
Combined with a heady mix of political and technological infighting, the lack of communication meant that communities Redmond once worked well with were treated poorly.
Last week was different
But that was then. The Microsoft on display at Build this last week is a Microsoft if not necessarily transformed then at least transforming.
Tomi Engdahl says:
“The Indian IT’s cheapness is a myth”
“Many Indian IT companies that tried to compete with the cheap price alone, dropped out of the game in the late 1990s and early 2000s,”
In the background, among other things, by the fact that wages have gone up in India for 15 years.
Today in many Eastern European countries and parts of the United States to work in the software are already available at lower prices than India. “The Indian IT’s cheapness is a myth,” says Indian Wipro senior executive of the NS Bala.
“My department has grown over the past three years, but every year the number of employees has decreased,”
Source: Tietoviikko
http://www.tietoviikko.fi/kaikki_uutiset/quotintialaisen+itn+halpuus+on+myyttiquot/a980683
Tomi Engdahl says:
Intel, 3M, SGI eye new data center coolant
http://www.zdnet.com/intel-3m-sgi-eye-new-data-center-coolant-7000028203/
Summary: 3M’s Novec fluid combined with two-phase immersion cooling could shrink data center footprints and consume a lot less energy. A proof-of-concept supercomputer will be tested this month.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Tech Firms May Find No-Poaching Pacts Costly
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/04/07/tech-firms-may-find-no-poaching-pacts-costly/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=1
A high-stakes negotiation is taking place in Silicon Valley among some of the biggest names in the industry — Apple and Google among them — over accusations that they were involved in a collusion to prevent their employees from being hired at rival companies. The employees filed a class-action suit, contending that the illegal hiring practices cost employees $9 billion in lost wages.
Tomi Engdahl says:
ARM Moves to LLVM Open-Source for Future Compilers
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1321853&
ARM is moving its future compilers to open-source under the LLVM license in a fundamental shift away from proprietary technology.
ARM Compiler 6 supports the coming 64bit ARMv8 architecture and will be integrated into future versions of the DS-5 development suite for high- and system-on-chip development. This will also become the basis of the compiler for microcontroller projects.
“The benefit for our users is greater feature velocity from open source,”
ARM bought Keil eight years ago
The licensing is the most distinguishing feature, he said. LLVM is more attractive to corporate contributors versus people who are just hobbyist or enthusiasts. Intel, Nvidia, Google, and Qualcomm have all been heavy contributors because they are not fond of GPL for obvious reasons.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Sony Curves Images Sensors & TSMC Stacks Them
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1321841&
Two papers at an upcoming engineering conference promise to take image sensors in new directions.
The image sensor market leader Sony Corp. is due to report on an improved CMOS image sensor that uses a curved substrate to improve the image fidelity and reduce the dark current. At the same event, the Symposium on VLSI Technology, which takes place June 9-12 in Honolulu,engineers from TSMC will report on a CMOS image sensor with a 3D stacked architecture.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Cheat Win XP DEATH: Little-known tool to save you from the XPocalypse
Your handy guide to keeping snubbed operating system ticking over
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/04/10/how_to_run_xp_on_new_windows/
Windows XP’s date with destiny has passed. As of Tuesday, Microsoft will NOT be releasing any new security updates. With one in five PCs still running Windows XP, there’s a chance you are among those whose computer is now running an unsupported operating system. What now?
Doing an in-place upgrade to Windows 7 isn’t a good choice.
But there’s another, little-known way to replace your old, unsupported OS with a new one that’s safe, current, gets updates and comes free of charge. The answer: run Windows XP as a zombie OS on something else.
Windows 7 introduced a workaround: Windows XP Mode. This is a free download for Windows 7 Pro and above, comprising two files: a compressed virtual machine containing a complete, pre-installed copy of XP Pro, and a copy of Microsoft’s free desktop hypervisor, Virtual PC
This has been dropped in Windows 8.x
However, XP Mode remains a free download, and with a little work, you can get it running on the cheaper editions of Windows 7, on Windows 8.x – and even on Linux (Ubuntu in my case). All you need is a different hypervisor.
the freeware VMware Player will do
Oracle’s VirtualBox is free
You can download the XP Mode VM freely from Microsoft’s website
You need an XP licence, of course – the copy in the VM is keyed against VirtualPC’s emulated hardware and will fail when running on VirtualBox, so you’re going to need a valid XP Pro licence key.
The VM is just for your indispensable Windows apps – the idea is to use the host OS for Internet access, email and everything else. Don’t access the internet from the VM. Now Microsoft has stopped updating XP, it won’t be safe
Tomi Engdahl says:
Apple will flush $63bn down the can if it doesn’t make a cheap slabtop – analyst
Cupertino golden with laptop-like-tablet
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/04/10/apple_ianywhere_laptop_tablet/
A senior JPMorgan analyst has urged Apple to seize a $63bn (£37bn) opportunity by flogging a hybrid laptop-tablet device running iOS.
Equity research analyst Rod Hall said the fruity firm was missing out on a huge market by failing to produce a cheap-ish mongrel laptop priced between $500 and $1,000 (£300 and £600).
The JPMorgan man suggested Apple is likely to “cannibalize” its MacBook Air line in 2014 to effectively add a mouse and keyboard combo to its slabs.
Tomi Engdahl says:
PC market’s bleeding slows thanks to XP phase-out
Decline levels off a bit as customers finally move to new machines
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/04/10/pc_market_bleeding_slows_thanks_to_xp_phaseout/
The end of support for the Windows XP operating system has triggered a jump in sales, bringing a rare bit of good news for PC vendors.
Research firm Gartner found that PC sales in the first quarter of 2014 are down 1.7 per cent over the same period last year. While still showing decline, the figure points to a possible rebound in the PC sector as the loss is far slimmer than those seen in previous quarters.
Researchers noted that the enterprise space in particular saw a boost in sales as companies moved to replace their old systems with newer hardware powered by Windows 8 and Windows 7, after Microsoft’s decision to end support for the XP platform after 13 years.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Ask Slashdot: How To Start With Linux In the Workplace?
http://linux.slashdot.org/story/14/04/10/1737218/ask-slashdot-how-to-start-with-linux-in-the-workplace
“Recently my boss has asked me about the advantages of Linux as a desktop operating system and if it would be a good idea to install it instead of upgrading to Windows 7 or 8. About ten boxes here are still running Windows XP and would be too old to upgrade to any newer version of Windows. ”
Comments:
This story says it’s from the “sounds like Mint works for you” department, and I think that’s your answer. If you’re going to have to look after them, then it makes sense to go with what you’re most familiar with, especially as Mint shouldn’t be too alien to XP users.
Isn’t Mint a distribution? So you should be able to make ity look like anything out there. I believe XFCE would look the most familiar.
For the user, look at the desktop. For the admin, look at the distribution.
As an admin, I would probably use something like SUSEStudio.com [susestudio.com], because it would mean I would be able to easily make an installable image that looks likeI would want it with the programs I desire.
And, really, unless you invest in the time of managing these machines, including patch roll out and the like … all you’re doing is making problems for yourself down the road.
People expect their work computers to work, they expect the process of updating to be hands-off, transparent, and uniform (why does Sally have a completely different version that I do?).
If you’re working with people who are comfortable with technology, then making such a transition should not cause too much pain. Annoyances yes, especially with file format compatibility issues, but nothing too serious.
The thing is, Windows 7 also runs great on older hardware.
XP users will bitch and moan enough already if they have to use Windows 7 or 8. Giving them Linux would be much worse.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Extending platform commonality through universal Windows apps
http://blogs.windows.com/windows/b/buildingapps/archive/2014/04/02/extending-platform-commonality-through-universal-windows-apps.aspx
With this release of the Windows developer platform we set out to accomplish three major goals: 1) Reach customers across phones, tablets, and PCs; 2) Deliver innovation that supports developer investments; 3) Make cross-platform technology easier and more capable.
Windows Phone 8 brought the same core set of operating system components used by Windows 8 to the modern UI of Windows Phone. Today we’re taking an even bigger step with Windows Phone 8.1 and Windows 8.1 Update by empowering developers to create universal Windows apps for a common Windows runtime.
Since universal Windows apps run on the same Windows runtime, developers have a common way of building and architecting apps for phones, tablets and PCs; from how they handle suspend and resume and do background processing, to the way they manage in-app security.
To help developers create universal Windows apps for Windows 8.1 and Windows Phone 8.1, we’ve announced the release of Visual Studio 2013 Update 2 RC. In addition to enhanced productivity and collaboration features, Visual Studio 2013 Update 2 RC includes Shared Projects that allow developers to create an app that is easily tailored to render a contextually appropriate experience across Windows phones, tablets and PCs.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Microsoft OS chief Myerson on the future of ‘One Windows’
http://www.zdnet.com/microsoft-os-chief-myerson-on-the-future-of-one-windows-7000028286/
Summary: The head of Microsoft’s unified operating system group, Terry Myerson, shares more details on Microsoft’s one Windows vision in a Q&A with ZDNet’s Mary Jo Foley.
Microsoft’s Executive Vice President of operating systems, Terry Myerson, has a lot on his plate.
ZDNET: It’s clear that Metro/Windows Store is the heart of Microsoft’s Windows vision going forward. But how should we be thinking about the role of the desktop? Many believe the desktop is going to be going away, but others think it can’t and won’t. What’s the reality?
MYERSON: We actually value using the desktop. I feel highly productive using it. It’s very familiar to me. We plan — (as) we talked about at the Build conference — to bring modern apps to the desktop. We are going to have machines that have a great desktop experience.
It (the desktop) is also not the right experience for a phone or a tablet. And so how the Windows experience spans these form factors and is familiar across them — that’s what we need to deliver if we’re going to delight people in the whole ecosystem.
The desktop is part of our future. It’s absolutely core to Windows.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Digital advertising hits $43B, passing broadcast TV for the first time ever
http://venturebeat.com/2014/04/10/digital-advertising-hits-43b-passing-broadcast-tv-for-the-first-time-ever/
This past year, digital advertising online and via mobile crossed the $40 billion mark for the first time ever, according to the Internet Advertising Bureau. Since 2004, the average growth rate has been 18 percent. And this year, digital ad revenues surpassed broadcast television for the first time.
Not shockingly, mobile is leading the charge.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Puff on a hybrid – next thing you know, you’re hooked on a public cloud
Cost barriers are falling fast. Go public, it’s inevitable
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/04/11/building_hybrid_cloud_like_adding_leaks_to_a_dam/
I had a flash of inspiration today. Hybrid public-private cloud systems are becoming a gateway drug to pure public clouds. Why is this an arguable view? Let’s look to the ideas discussed within The Big Switch, written by Nicholas Carr.
A good analogy to this is comparing a corporation operating power stations to businesses having their own generator in the basement.
Hooking public cloud services to a private data centre makes storage and workload migration to the public cloud easier. If you can move workloads reliably and simply between private and public clouds then the risk of things going wrong when moving them to the public cloud is reduced.
The public cloud world consists of more than Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and Google. Most telcos are implementing and selling some form of cloud IT services, and many are enterprise class. When they offer workload importation and workload operation with SLAs and protection then their price tags can be compared to in-house IT costs.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Windows 8.1 Update woes pile up: Errors 80070020, 80073712, 800F081F, 80242FFF, 800F0922
WSUS is still down, as general update failures and complaints flow in the two days since the release of Windows 8.1 Update
http://www.infoworld.com/t/microsoft-windows/windows-81-update-woes-pile-errors-80070020-80073712-800f081f-80242fff-800f0922-240249
Tomi Engdahl says:
Michael Bloomberg: You can’t teach a coal miner to code
http://gigaom.com/2014/04/09/michael-bloomberg-you-cant-teach-a-coal-miner-to-code/
Have some compassion for the displaced coal workers, says Michael Bloomberg. They can’t just all go out and learn to code.
Tomi Engdahl says:
7 habits of highly successful Unix admins
http://www.itworld.com/operating-systems/413259/unix-7-habits-highly-successful-unix-admins
You can spend 50-60 hours a week managing your Unix servers and responding to your users’ problems and still feel as if you’re not getting much done or you can adopt some good work habits that will both make you more successful and prepare you for the next round of problems.
Habit 1: Don’t wait for problems to find you
Habit 2: Know your tools and your systems
Habit 3: Prioritize, prioritize, prioritize
Habit 4: Perform post mortems, but don’t get lost in them
Habit 5: Document your work
Habit 6: Fix the problem AND explain
Habit 7: Make time for yourself
Tomi Engdahl says:
‘Software-defined anything’ is NONSENSE. Don’t bother pitching it
Be original, and I might just say something nice about you
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/04/12/new_service_offering_from_storagebod/
And I’ll give you a tip: if your new concept is “[anything]-defined-[anything]”, it’s rubbish.
Tomi Engdahl says:
How Close Are We to a Truly Cloud-Based Windows?
http://www.theenterprisecloudsite.com/author.asp?doc_id=269084&cid=sem_ob_pv_rss_nc
The world of software remains mired in a per-processor licensing scheme. The cloud era is removing all technical barriers binding a desktop to a specific processor or storage device, and the remaining restrictions are not so much conceptual as contractual.
Not too many folks know that Remote Desktop Services (RDS) is a regular part of Windows.
Microsoft will not sell RDS access to hosted virtual desktop infrastructures (VDI) on its own Azure platform; someone else will.
Mind you, a hosted VDI is not the same as a virtual machine, as with installing a Windows client inside a VM running on a cloud platform.
Enterprises already know it’s feasible to deploy virtual Windows desktops on cloud platforms, even Azure.
Does Microsoft even need to produce a unified kernel if it’s possible to run the same Windows sessions on multiple devices without unified kernels? You might say Microsoft is scrambling for an answer
Tomi Engdahl says:
The GNOME Foundation Is Running Out of Money
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/14/04/13/1454215/the-gnome-foundation-is-running-out-of-money
Tomi Engdahl says:
Peak Hard Drive
http://datascienceassn.org/content/peak-hard-drive
This past week, Seagate finally announced a 6TB hard drive, which is three years after their 4TB hard drive. Of course, Hitachi announced their hermetically-sealed helium 6TB hard drives in November, 2013, but only to OEM and cloud customers, not for retail sale.
Hard drive capacities are slowing down as shown
This is not good news for users of Big Data. Data sizes (and variety and number of sources) are continuing to grow, but hard drive sizes are leveling off. Horizontal scaling is no longer going to be an option; the days of the monolithic RDBMS are numbered. Worse, data center sizes and energy consumption will increase proportional to growth in data size rather than be tempered by advances in hard drive capacities as we had become accustomed to.
We haven’t reached an absolute peak in hard drive capacity, so the term “peak hard drive” is an exaggeration
Tomi Engdahl says:
Dell Chromebook 11 review
There’s a new king in Chromebook town
http://www.theverge.com/2014/4/9/5597748/dell-chromebook-11-review
Tomi Engdahl says:
Chrome Remote Desktop for Android beta being tested
http://gigaom.com/2014/04/13/chrome-remote-desktop-for-android-beta-being-tested/
Google continues work on its Android software that connects and controls a remote computer. Private beta testing is underway so the application should be launching in the near future.
Remotely accessing a computer isn’t new and there are plenty of options to do so. One of the newest is coming from Google however: The company has been working on an Android version of its Chrome Remote Desktop app for nearly a year and a full release is likely imminent. A select few beta testers are using the software, which provides remote control of a Windows or Mac computer from an Android phone or tablet.
Tomi Engdahl says:
NASA Releases 1,000 Apps to Public
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1321883&
NASA writes a lot of software, and that software performs a wide variety of functions. The nation’s space agency also makes much of that software available to other federal agencies, organizations, businesses, and the public through approximately 1,500 software usage agreements. Now NASA wants to make better use of its intellectual asset portfolio and is releasing a software catalogue with more than 1,000 applications that are available for free to the public.
Software makes up about a third of reported NASA inventions each year
Tomi Engdahl says:
Is 2014 the Year We Hit the Technology Tipping Point?
http://www.workintelligent.ly/technology/trends/2014-3-10-technology-tipping-point/
Earlier this year, Yahoo’s Marissa Mayer said more users would access its content on mobile devices and tablets than on personal computers. That’s the type of trigger that has her and many pundits proclaiming 2014 as a “tipping point” for technology.
Is 2014 the Technology Tipping Point? Let’s look at a few things that are impacting the scales in 2014.
Mobile’s Shift Is Well Underway
Sparking New Business Models
Make Friends With The Machines
Tomi Engdahl says:
7 High Tech Tools Your Workforce Needs
http://www.workintelligent.ly/technology/it/2014-3-20-high-tech-tools-workforce/
Tomi Engdahl says:
How the Information Age is Changing Us
http://www.workintelligent.ly/information/transformation/2014-4-2-information-age-changing-humans/
Is the Information Age helping us to evolve as human beings since we have answers at the ease of a simple Google search; or has it become a crutch for laziness? At the end of the day, it’s a matter of perspective.
Tomi Engdahl says:
7 Mobile Technology Skills You Need to Master
http://www.workintelligent.ly/technology/mobile/2014-4-14-7-mobile-technology-skills/
As mobile technology becomes more and more mainstream, workers need these important skills for the new world of work.
MANAGING BATTERY LIFE (AND EXPECTATIONS)
GETTING DECENT IMAGES OUT OF YOUR PHONE CAMERA
KEEPING YOUR STUFF READY OFFLINE
MANAGING ALERT NOISE
SENDING, DOWNLOADING, EDITING FILES
CAPTURING IDEAS, CONTACTS & CONVERSATIONS
HOW TO SECURE YOUR DEVICE
Moving Forward
Tomi Engdahl says:
Red Hat unveils cloudy software bazaar
Linux fiddler keeps on huffing on its OpenShift cloud
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/04/14/red_hat_marketplace/
Red Hat has created a “software marketplace” to help it cut the steps it takes for admins to layer third-party applications on top of its OpenShift platform-as-a-service.
The marketplace was announced by Red Hat on Monday as the Linux company kicked off its annual Red Hat Summit in San Francisco.
The cloudy marketplace will give Red Hat customers a simple way to access third-party OpenShift add-ons from existing Red Hat partners such as BladeMeter, ClearDB, Iron.io, MongoLab, New Relic, Redis Labs, SendGrid, and Shippable
Tomi Engdahl says:
Microsoft starts accepting developer submissions for universal Windows apps and Windows Phone 8.1 apps
http://thenextweb.com/microsoft/2014/04/14/microsoft-starts-accepting-developer-submissions-universal-windows-apps-windows-phone-8-1-apps/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Zebra Tech to buy Motorola Solutions’ unit for $3.5 billion: FT
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/04/15/us-motorola-solu-divestment-zebra-tech-idUSBREA3E06220140415
Motorola Solutions’ enterprise business, which makes rugged mobile computers and tablets for businesses, has struggled as companies delay orders and cut down on spending.
Tomi Engdahl says:
How Zuck met Oculus: The story behind Facebook’s big bet on virtual reality
http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2014/04/14/how-zuck-met-oculus-the-story-behind-facebooks-big-bet-on-virtual-reality/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Microsoft Confirms It Is Dropping Windows 8.1 Support
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/14/04/15/0053213/microsoft-confirms-it-is-dropping-windows-81-support
“Microsoft TechNet blog makes clear that Windows 8.1 will not be patched, and that users must get Windows 8.1 Update if they want security patches, InfoWorld’s Woody Leonhard reports”
“Never mind that Windows 8.1 customers are still having multiple problems with errors when trying to install the Update.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Microsoft: Windows version you probably haven’t upgraded to yet is ALREADY OBSOLETE
Pre-Update versions of Windows 8.1 will no longer support patches
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/04/14/microsoft_version_of_windows_you_probably_havent_upgraded_to_yet_is_already_obsolete/
Microsoft is urging users running Windows 8.1 to update their systems soon, since the company plans to drop patch support for early versions of the operating system.
Redmond said that after May it would only issue updates for systems running the Windows 8.1 Update release and later. The move means that Windows 8.1 systems which have not installed the “Update” package will receive “not applicable” notifications when attempting to install future system updates.
While losing support for updates will be a major security hazard for those left behind on older versions of Windows 8,1, the issue is likely only to affect a small subset of Redmond’s customers.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Toshiba’s first 4K laptop arrives next week for $1,500
http://www.engadget.com/2014/04/15/toshibas-first-4k-laptop-arrives-next-week-for-1-500/
After launching its first 4K laptop in the UK, Toshiba has just announced US availability. Stateside, it’ll be called the P55T, but as before, it’s a 15.6-inch laptop with 3,840 x 2,160 resolution. That’s a staggering 282 ppi, if you’re scoring at home — compared to, say 220 ppi for Apple’s 15-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display.
As with the 4K laptop, Toshiba’s other new models are similar to those announced in the UK, but with slightly different model names.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Netgear adds BitTorrent Sync to its network-attached storage drives
http://gigaom.com/2014/04/15/netgear-adds-bittorrent-sync-to-its-network-attached-storage-drives/
Summary:
BitTorrent is teaming up with Netgear to give users of its Dropbox competitor Sync an easy way to back up and sync files and folders from mobile devices directly to a ReadyNAS drive.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Red Hat to ship RHEL 7 release candidate with a taste of container tech
Grab ‘near-final’ version of next Enterprise Linux next week
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/04/16/rhel_7_release_candidate/
Red Hat has announced that a release candidate (RC) of the next version of its flagship enterprise Linux OS has already been distributed to its strategic partners and will be made available to the general public next week.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 7 has been in beta since December 2013
At this year’s Red Hat Summit, CEO Jim Whitehurst touted containers as one of the key features of RHEL 7
The RHEL 7 release candidate is available now to equipment manufacturers and independent software vendors (ISVs) for integration testing, and Red Hat says it will offer it as a download for all customers the week of April 21
Tomi Engdahl says:
How ‘DevOps’ is Killing the Developer
http://jeffknupp.com/blog/2014/04/15/how-devops-is-killing-the-developer/
There are two recent trends I really hate: DevOps and the notion of the “full-stack” developer. The DevOps movement is so popular that I may as well say I hate the x86 architecture or monolithic kernels. But it’s true: I can’t stand it. The underlying cause of my pain? This fact: not every company is a start-up, though it appears that every company must act as though they were.
“DevOps” is meant to denote a close collaboration and cross-pollination between what were previously purely development roles, purely operations roles, and purely QA roles. Because software needs to be released at an ever-increasing rate, the old “waterfall” develop-test-release cycle is seen as broken. Developers must also take responsibility for the quality of the testing and release environments.
The increasing scope of responsibility of the “developer” (whether or not that term is even appropriate anymore is debatable) has given rise to a chimera-like job candidate: the “full-stack” developer.
Where did these concepts come from? Start-ups, of course (and the Agile methodology).
If such people even existed, “full-stack” developers still wouldn’t be used as they should. Rather than temporarily taking on a single role for a short period of time, then transitioning into the next role, they are meant to be performing all the roles, all the time. And here’s what really sucks: most good developers can almost pull this off.
Jack of All Trades, Master of None
Don’t Kill the Developer
The effect of all of this is to destroy the role of “developer” and replace it with a sort of “technology utility-player”. Every developer I know got into programming because they actually enjoyed doing it (at one point). You do a disservice to everyone involved when you force your brightest people to take on additional roles.
Tomi Engdahl says:
AMD demos ‘Berlin’ Opteron, world’s first heterogeneous system architecture server chip
Forget CPUs. Forget GPUs. It’s all compute, all the time
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/04/16/amd_demos_berlin_its_first_heterogeneous_system_architecture_opteron_at_red_hat/
AMD will give the first public demo of its second-generation Opteron X-Series server processor, code-named “Berlin”, at the Red Hat Summit in San Francisco on Wednesday.
The company tells The Reg that the demo will consist of X2100 Series Opteron running a Linux environment based on the Fedora Project.
Tomi Engdahl says:
PC sales plummeted made Intel to invest in a tablet chips
Chip giant Intel sold in the first quarter of the year five million processors to tablet computers.
The company’s interim results, however, fell due to a weak PC sales. IDC data show that worldwide PC sales fell by 4.4 per cent in the beginning of the year.
Mobile smartphone and tablet chip sales plunged 61 percent from the year before. The mobile business profits ate the battle for market share of ARM’s with. Intel has paid for equipment manufacturers use their chips.
This year the company plans to increase its market share in tablet chips to 15-20 per cent. During the year, according to the plan would be sent to the sale of 40 million Intel’s chip-functioning tablet PCs.
Source: Tietoviikko
http://www.tietoviikko.fi/kaikki_uutiset/pcmyynnin+sukeltaessa+intel+panostaa+tablettisiruihin/a982190
Tomi Engdahl says:
Once skyrocketing tablet sales growth sees a slowdown
Jan 30, 2014
http://www.pcworld.com/article/2092191/once-skyrocketing-tablet-sales-growth-sees-a-slowdown.html
Don’t dismiss tablets as a fad. But those days of skyrocketing sales may be coming to an end, according to figures from IDC.
The market research firm (whose parent company, IDG, owns PCWorld) found that worldwide tablet shipments grew by 28.2 percent year-over-year in the fourth quarter of 2013, reaching 76.9 million units. While tablet sales are still growing, the rate of growth was much slower than in the 2012 holiday quarter, when shipments increased by 75.3 percent year-over-year.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The PC may be dying, but tablet growth is slowing as consumer saturation sets in
http://www.zdnet.com/the-pc-may-be-dying-but-tablet-growth-is-slowing-as-consumer-saturation-sets-in-7000025734/
Summary: If you thought the tablet was the savior to the ailing PC market, we may need a better alternative if the latest tablet growth forecasts are to be believed.
While the chances of a PC market resurgence are slim, latest IDC figures released Wednesday suggest the tablet market may not be as healthy as first thought.
PC market saw worldwide shipments of 82.2 million units during the fourth quarter, but contracted by 5.6 percent year-over-year.
For the full 2013 calendar year, worldwide tablet shipments totaled 217 million units, a 50 percent growth on the full 2012 calendar year of 144 million shipments.
IDC’s Tom Mainelli said in remarks: “It’s becoming increasingly clear that markets such as the U.S. are reaching high levels of consumer saturation and while emerging markets continue to show strong growth this has not been enough to sustain the dramatic worldwide growth rates of years past.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Tablet Sales May Be Declining, But Technology Launches Remain Strong
http://mwrf.com/components/tablet-sales-may-be-declining-technology-launches-remain-strong
Tablet sales are set to tumble, according to IDC. The market-research firm predicts that the substantial 51% market growth recorded in 2013 is likely to decline to around 20% this year. Even with the decline, that translates into 260 million units being shipped worldwide. Whether this situation should be called a downturn or merely market stabilization is debatable.
But what is clear to analysts is that tablet users are becoming less inclined to upgrade to higher-performing models.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Children can swipe a screen but can’t use toy building blocks, teachers warn
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/apr/15/children-swipe-screen-toy-building-blocks-teachers
Teachers call for research into effects of tablet addiction amid concerns computer habits are hindering progress at school
“Teachers talk of students who come into their classrooms having spent most of the previous night playing computer games and their attention spans are so limited they might as well not be there,” Kinney said.
“I’ve spoken to a number of nursery teachers who have concerns over the increasing numbers of young pupils who can swipe a screen but have little or no manipulative skills to play with building blocks – or pupils who can’t socialise with other pupils, but whose parents talk proudly of their ability to use a tablet or smartphone.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Shut down for hardware sales and the cost of redundancies hit from IBM in the first quarter. The company’s operating profit fell by 21 per cent from a year ago.
Also, IBM’s sales narrowed from a year earlier, down 4 per cent in net sales of 22.5 billion dollars, or about 16.26 billion Euros.
Operating profit was 2.4 billion dollars (1.7 billion euros), while a year earlier it was $ 3 billion.
Source: Tietoviikko
http://www.tietoviikko.fi/kaikki_uutiset/italan+muutos+lyo+ibmaa++liikevoitto+laski+satoja+miljoonia/a982512
Tomi Engdahl says:
Inside the Hekaton: SQL Server 2014′s database engine deconstructed
Nadella’s database sqares the circle of cheap memory vs speed
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/04/17/sql_server_database_engine/
Redmond’s new database will compete with the entrenched kings of the database world, Oracle and DB2.
SQL Server is consistently one of the strongest growers in Microsoft’s product portfolio, meaning Microsoft’s revenue share of the RDBMS market has grown in nearly two decades.
Microsoft has clawed out a third-place position behind IBM and Oracle (number one)
Arguably, the only thing that’s prevented SQL Server from doing better is the fact it’s only available for Windows.
Memory is the new disk
When designing this release, Microsoft re-evaluated the reasons data is stored on disk rather than in memory.
Main memory is now huge, dense, and most importantly, very cheap. Durable flash memory has and will almost certainly continue to follow the same curve. Whilst 32-bit Windows coped with at most 3GB of usable memory, CPUs are now 64-bit and Windows Server 2012 can address 4TB of RAM. Memory sizes are growing at such a rapid rate, it’s estimated that more than 95 per cent of disk-based online transaction processing (OLTP) databases are small enough to be stored in-memory.
It is time to re-think why data is stored on slow, unreliable disk, for anything other than recovery and archive purposes.
The Hekaton database engine – an addition to rather than a replacement for the core SQL Server database engine – now has the capability to store tables in memory. In contrast to Oracle’s TimesTen and IBM’s SolidDB, SQL Server’s in-memory database engine is fully integrated into the core product, and at no additional cost. This makes adoption attractive both technically and financially.
One table at a time migration is practical, reducing risk without requiring expensive consultancy or new skill sets. All common data types are supported – only the less often used XML, CLR and max() types are excluded.
Hekaton’s in-memory features are supported by traditional backup and restore and SQL Server’s high availability options
Microsoft has quietly introduced natively compiled stored procedures. These compile down to DLLs containing ready to run machine code